Beeching anniversary: the lines that escaped the axe

Today marks 50 years since the Beeching Report. Stephen McClarence highlights
four scenic lines that earned a last-minute reprieve.

"The Hope Valley Line runs from Sheffield, past parks and retail parks, reaches the city's outer suburbs, and plunges into the Totley tunnel. Three-and-a-half miles later, it emerges into another world"Photo: ALAMY

By Stephen McClarence

2:00PM GMT 27 Mar 2013

Back in the Sixties, as Dr Beeching was wielding his axe over the British rail network, the comedy duo Flanders and Swann wrote a wistful little song called Slow Train. With a chuff-chuffing piano accompaniment, they wove their lyrics out of the names of threatened stations:

“No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road. No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street. We won’t be meeting again On the Slow Train.”

It was a Flanders and Swann-song for an era that was about to end. Today sees the 50th anniversary of the Beeching Report, which set out to make Britain’s railway system pay its way. Dr Richard Beeching, a businessman who became chairman of the British Railways Board, wanted to close dozens of underused and unprofitable branch lines, most of them rural or industrial. He recommended that more than 2,300 stations should go, along with 5,000 miles of the 18,000-mile rail network.

So eagerly were his proposals grasped that the first closures came months before the report was actually published. The Shropshire line from Wellington to Buildwas and Much Wenlock closed in July 1962, followed by Wolverhampton-to-Stourbridge and Bewdley-to-Tenbury Wells. No rural halt was safe.

To some, Beeching was a hero; to others, mindful of communities being cut off, he was a villain. There is no sterner critic than Julian Holland, author of Dr Beeching’s Axe 50 Years On. The cuts were “senseless destruction”, he says, carried through “for the sake of a politically motivated love affair with road transport.” His book, packed with nostalgic photographs of steam locomotives, aims to include every line that was closed. Equally interesting, though, are the lines that were scheduled for closure but reprieved, sometimes after bitter protests, sometimes for pragmatic political reasons.

They include some of Britain’s most scenic rail journeys, most famously the Settle-to-Carlisle line, voted the world’s second-best train trip a couple of years ago (South Africa’s Blue Train won). But there are plenty of others that are worth taking just for their own sake. They are reminders of the gentle pleasures of rail travel far from the main lines, a glimpse of the days before passengers were rebranded as customers and refreshment trolleys started being pushed by “on-train retail hosts”. Here are four “Slow Trains” that Flanders and Swann would undoubtedly have enjoyed.

The Far North Line

Britain’s most northerly line runs from Inverness to Thurso in the top right-hand corner of Scotland. Had it closed, there would have been no trains north of the city and no rail link to Thurso, where nearby Scrabster is a departure point for ferries to the Orkney Islands. The line, which also branches off to Wick, meanders through 160 miles in a little under four hours, time enough to write a novel, never mind read one. It threads through valleys that witnessed a Victorian gold rush, passes small harbours and skirts seaside towns.

It sometimes hugs the coast so closely that it’s almost on the beach; the silvery-blue water shimmers in the sunshine and, around Brora, cormorants perch on rocks drying their wings while seals bask on the sands. A homely highlight is the half-timbered station at Dunrobin Castle (pictured above), built for his own use by the Duke of Sutherland. Daunting highland peaks loom on the horizon.

Perhaps the most fascinating stretch comes when the train veers inland across the great, flat Flow Country of Caithness. This is one of Britain’s last wildernesses, mile after sweeping mile of very little apart from a lovat-and-beige expanse of small lochs, bog and pine trees. Particularly on a glowering grey day, the line has an uncompromising remoteness as it passes abandoned crofts, battered line-side snow fences and isolated hotels and hunting lodges.

People with rucksacks get off at lonely, unmanned stations and may be seen no more. The journey is wild and strange. It feels like real exploration.

The train pulls out of Sheffield, speeds past parks and retail parks, reaches the city’s outer suburbs, and plunges into the Totley tunnel. Three-and-a-half miles later, it emerges into another world.

Opening out on either side is a panorama of the Derbyshire Peak District, some of Britain’s most exhilarating walking country. On the left are high, bald moors; on the right the handsome village of Hathersage, full of associations with Charlotte Bronte and Robin Hood’s Little John, reputedly buried in the churchyard up on the hill. The landscape is spectacular at any time of year, but in winter, covered with an eiderdown of snow, it takes on a Brueghelesque character.

The line, which Beeching originally planned to close between Dore (Sheffield) and Stockport, carries on to Manchester, the other city that has always regarded the Peak District as its weekend escape from the factories (in the days when there were still factories to escape from).

This is traditionally a walkers’ line. You can join the start of the Pennine Way from Edale station and try your luck with Kinder Scout, the Peak District’s highest point and the start of the famous 1932 Mass Trespass (avoid this route in bad weather).

Fast through-trains run on the Hope Valley Line, covering Sheffield-Manchester in less than an hour. But the slower “stopping trains” are the key to it. Cheerful with rucksack-laden ramblers equipped with home-made cheese sandwiches, they have a holiday atmosphere.

Change at Stockport and you can join another scenic line that survived Beeching: to Buxton, the highest market town in England.

For four hours, the train makes its steady 120-mile way down through Shropshire and Wales from Shrewsbury, whose skyline bristles with church spires and towers, to Swansea, taking in Llandovery, Llanwrda, Llangadog, Llandeilo and Llangennech. It’s an “Ll” of a journey.

Sometimes just one coach long in winter, with two in summer, the line (which Beeching wanted to close between Craven Arms and Llanelli) has 30 or so stops, many only on request. It’s one of Britain’s most consistently rural runs, with one or two stations so isolated that sheep must be the only potential passengers.

Before you cross the border, there are fine views of Wenlock Edge and the Long Mynd, with Iron Age and Roman reminders round every other bend. The fortified towers of Knucklas Viaduct are a landmark, though you may not realise that as you travel over it.

Red kites wheel over the trees near Cynghordy, and Black Mountain and Sugar Loaf mountain loom (pictured below); you feel immersed deep in rural Wales. Once busy with people off to take the waters at spas such as Llandrindod Wells and Builth Wells, it’s now the most practical of scenic lines, with passengers getting on with bags of shopping to take home.

You can make an interesting round trip back to Shrewsbury by taking the train from Swansea to Cardiff and Newport and joining the Welsh Marches Line up through Hereford, Leominster and Ludlow (a line strong on castles, with picturesque Stokesay stealing the show).

See heart-of-wales.co.uk. An Explore Wales Pass (explorewalespass.co.uk) gives access to all Wales’ mainline train services and many bus routes; £94 from Arriva Trains Wales, it runs for eight consecutive days, allowing four days’ train and eight days’ bus travel. Also see visitwales.co.uk

The Esk Valley Line

The 35-mile Esk Valley Line, from Middlesbrough to Whitby, is a second cousin of the more celebrated Settle-Carlisle. For about 90 minutes, the train twists and turns through some of England’s most rugged moorland, much of the time through the North York Moors National Park.

The route, full of heroic Victorian engineering, takes in long rolling valleys and high hills with pines clustered on top. It passes salmon streams, buttercup meadows and bluebell woods, with hawthorn branches sometimes brushing the windows and pheasants and rabbits scattering as you pass. The sturdy stone stations have such a period feel that you half expect a cheery red-faced porter to bustle along the platform with a trolley for your luggage.

Part of the line’s function is to bring schoolchildren from outlying villages into Whitby and take them home. On school days the afternoon train back can be boisterously St Trinian’s. Otherwise, the passengers include walkers and men in tweed jackets visiting friends in neighbouring villages.

At Grosmont, 20 minutes out of Whitby, the “heritage” North Yorkshire Moors Railway joins the Esk Valley after its scenic journey up from Pickering on a line axed by Beeching in 1965 but subsequently rescued.

On the Whitby platform, near the excellent Whistlestop Tea Rooms, is a Victorian cream-tiled wall map of the Yorkshire rail network in the days when it stretched its tentacles to the county’s most remote corners. Even the tiniest villages had stations linking them to the outside world: Sexhow and Potto, Danby Wiske and Boosbeck. Cue Flanders and Swann.